


landing is the worst part

by stupidgaytree



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon, Selectively Mute Character, Sign Language, gotta do it all myself.., i call this one: i can only go so long before putting my headcanons out for the world to see, is trauma bonding a tag, this ones significantly less painful i think, why isnt that a fucking tag i hate this site, yes thats right folks. another jake pov jake&dani fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-18
Updated: 2019-05-18
Packaged: 2020-03-07 12:15:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18873025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stupidgaytree/pseuds/stupidgaytree
Summary: Adjusting to Earth is a process. It starts small.





	landing is the worst part

Jake finds the new kid one day leaning against the wall of the Lodge, out back, sort of just staring into the trees. Well -- relatively new. Jake's only been here a year, and she's his age, so they're _pretty_ equal?

“Hey!” he says, and swings down to sit next to her. She jumps and casts a nervous glance at him, and he offers her a smile.

“Why are you out here?” he asks. “I thought for sure you weren’t gonna work up the nerve to go outside for a few more days.”

Her lip twitches, but she looks away and doesn't say anything. She hasn't talked at all since she got here two days ago -- she told the Lodge her name was Dani by writing it on some paper and then asked to be left alone for a while. Barclay had pulled him aside later.

“Jake,” he'd said, “Be friendly towards her, alright?”

“Yeah, of course,” Jake said instantly. “She's scared. I get it. We were all scared.”

Barclay had nodded. His eyes were lost somewhere else. They looked as sad as Jake remembers them being the day he came. “Don't pressure her to talk or anything,” he said.

“Of course, man,” Jake repeated. “Yeah.”

Now, Jake watches Dani out of the corner of his eye. She has some papers clutched in her hands, and a pencil, but he can't see if there's anything on them. He asks anyways. “Do you draw?”

Dani blinks back at him. He tries again. “Like, do you do art stuff?”

Dani releases a little sigh and rolls her eyes. Jake tries to hold back his grin and not be a weirdo about her doing something perfectly normal. Hesitantly, Dani tilts her papers so Jake can see the one on top.

“Oh, _rad!”_ he says, and he means it. The pencil is shaky and light, but the drawing is clear. It's a sketch of the woods behind the Lodge, in detail that makes something about the drawing feel all warm and familiar. “Do you do other stuff?”

Dani nods, a tiny smile starting to tug at her lips. She starts shuffling through the other papers; Jake sees some plants, the lobby, even a few hasty profiles of the residents of the Lodge, including him. Then she flicks to the last page.

Jake sees her shoulders tighten and regret flash in her expression, like she hadn't realized this one would come up so quick. He holds his breath as he looks at it. There are three drawings on this page, each of a different person, but Jake can see Dani's features in all of them -- a smiling, freckled man with glasses on making gestures in the air, a woman with eyebrows raised as she peers at a pile of papers, and a tween boy with a ball held between his hands as he looks up at an insect going by.

“Sorry,” Jake says.

Dani shakes her head. Her eyes look wet, and she's blinking fast. It makes Jake's chest feel tight, and he has to look away and try not to think about what _he_ left behind. He'll probably end up kicking a wall, and he doesn't want to scare Dani. His mom taught him better than that.

After a second, he hears Dani shift closer, and then the scratch of pencil on paper. He turns back to see her writing something. Tears are sliding silently down her face and dripping to the paper, but aside from her shoulders shuddering she doesn't seem to notice. She presents the paper to Jake, and he takes it to read.

 _Thank you for trying,_ it says, in Dani's loopy scrawl. He looks back up at her, and she offers him a watery smile. He swallows.

“Yeah,” he says, “Yeah, none of us are gonna leave you alone. We're in this together.”

Dani nods. She takes back her paper and writes something else that takes her a longer time. When she shows Jake, it reads, _Coincidentally, does anyone here know sign language? I don't want to talk for a while._

“Oh, yeah, don't worry about talking! Moira's fluent, and she's taught us some. City dialect, right?”

Jake knows more than enough sign language to know that she responds with, “Yes.”

“Cool,” he says. “Do you wanna hang out here for a while, or what?”

Dani shrugs. Jake shrugs back, and they both laugh. They settle back against the wall of the Lodge, and in the end, Jake dozes while Dani keeps drawing, and everything seems okay.

**Author's Note:**

> @teamsweetflips on tumblr ! i love these pseudo siblings very much.


End file.
